Fury at Daily Mail’s “loathsome” attack on Stephen Gately
October 16th, 2009
A homophobic rant about the recent death of Stephen Gately published in today’s Daily Mail has provoked anger of thousands of Twitter and Facebook users and caused the Press Complaints Commission website to crash.
In the article A strange, lonely and troubling death journalist Jan Moir refers to Gately’s “different and dangerous lifestyle”, and she draws connections between Gately’s death and the recent death of Matt Lucas’ ex partner, despite the fact that the two men did not know each other and Gately died of natural causes, while Kevin McGee committed suicide.
Moir suggests that Gately’s death was drugs-related despite there being no evidence of unnatural cause, and she calls the circumstances surrounding his death “more than a little sleazy” due to the fact that Gately and his partner had a male friend at their apartment on the night of the death.
“[Gately's death] strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships,” adds Moir.
By 3pm today ‘Jan Moir’ was a trending topic on Twitter and 479 comments had been made on the Daily Mail website.
The Press Complaints Commission website crashed after Stephen Fry called the article “loathsome and inhumane” and urged his 843,000 Twitter followers to complain.
They actually changed the headline in the wake of a storm of completely righteous indignation - the original was something along the lines of “there was nothing natural” about Gately’s death.
You know, other than the natural causes.
The implication in the article is that civil partnerships cannot be compared to heterosexual marriage, because if you are gay you are by your very nature promiscuous. It’s disgusting, and extremely offensive, to consider somebody got paid to write something like that by a national newspaper. Even the Daily Fail.
last year's girl ∼ October 16th, 2009 3:52 pmIt is a prime example of gutter journalism. Jan Moir has managed to insult every gay person, every person who has lost a friend or family member at a young age through natural circumstances and every decent person out there. However it was her so called ‘apology’ that insulted me the most - in it she says she was merely warning ‘impressionable young men who may want to emulate what they might see as his glamorous routine’… errrr how is this an apology - surely with this comment she’s just reinforcing her bigoted opinions on homosexual men!!!
Vivien ∼ October 18th, 2009 10:52 pmWhy does the sort of “promiscuity” associated with Stephen Gately’s threesome need come with such toxic moral outrage? The sort of moral outburst that nurtures hate crime should be attacked without moral squeamishness about “promiscuity”. No-one deserves to die - or be defamed because of their sexual habits. As a society we need to come to face sexualities that break what people view as the limits of marriage or civil partnership. And ask this question: why is consensual sex deemed worse than illicit affairs, seeing prostitutes… the sort of sexualities that straight men routinely get away with (As an example, did The Daily Mail target David Beckham in this way?).
At the root of The Daily Mail article is deepseated homophobia - and we shouldn’t let cloud the argument. In my opinion, Jan Moir and The Daily Mail should be tried under the new incitement of hatred law.
Please voice a complaint to the Press Complaint Commission - and spell out that this affects us all as gay people - whatever our sexual habits. As far as I can see, Jan Moir is almost disappointed that Aids or a “gay” disease didn’t kill him… Don’t let us wind the clocks back and accept the sort of homophobia prevalent in the 80s.
melanie Ashby ∼ October 19th, 2009 11:17 amFurther… my complaint to the PCC:
melanie ashby ∼ October 19th, 2009 5:28 pmhttp://www.ashby-design.co.uk/presscomplaint.html
I have never read anything, written with such vile misleading comments as the article writen by Jan Moir on the death of Stephen Gately. To write so an attack on the lifestyle of a man, without any evidence, on the eve of his funeral, is as low as it gets. What has Michael Jackson or Kevin McGee’s death got to do with Stephen Gatelys death? We all know that anyone (gay, straight, whatever) DO DIE OF NATURAL COURSES, to think that a gay man’s death is ” not by any yardstick” so, is so wicked and evil, and I would have thought against the law! Freedom of the press is one thing, but Jan Moir has gone way too far. You do not have to be gay to be offended by her evil comments, no should be allowed to write anything that they chose about someone, simply because they have died. Something should be done about this.
wendy Fisher ∼ October 20th, 2009 11:26 am